Don't get me wrong, for years I've been more "Linux user" than "Windows user" and I love (and regularly play) Open Source games like Nexuiz, World Of Padman, Battle For Wesnoth and a few others.
I also think that by far the majority of commercial games are utter derivative dreck but even if that's 99% of games, then there's more than enough to satisfy my gaming needs in that remaining 1% - I wholly applaud the commercial games industry for recent games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Galactic Civilizations 2, Fallout 3 and Half-Life (1,2, Episodes, Portal, etc.) for example.
But I think the optimal future for gaming is to have a hybrid between Open Source and commercial games. In an ideal world, graphics cards manufacturers will openly publish their card specifications to allow anyone to create good gaming engines for whatever genre of game is needed. Have commercial games people contributing to the development of those engines but have them mainly focused on level design and game content - so, in other words, the engine is pretty much free, you just pay for the levels/addons.
I've been gaming some 25+ years now and it's never ceased to amaze me how games companies will create a great engine for a game but then maybe only publish a handful of games on it - why not create a situation where the code for those engines is constantly enhanced and improved?
In the real world, just look at what the modding community has done on top of the Open Sourced Quake and Doom engines - some of the new games that have been created on those engines are worth a few dollars or pounds of anyone's money even though you can get them for free.
The games industry needs to stop thinking about £40 for a single standalone game and maybe start thinking about £10 for a new scenario for an existing engine.
The only real problem with buying CDs these days is having to be a little patient due to buying them online at the best prices possible and waiting for the postman to deliver them.
The last time I was in a Best Buy was about eight years ago when I was over in the States and I remember being quite impressed with their selections of music at the time - but if it's anything like over here in the UK now, most of the interesting music shops have disappeared now and we really only have HMV in the High Street here now, who themselves are giving over less and less space to CDs but (for any reasonable music) are charging higher and higher prices.
With that said, as someone in his 40s who started off as a vinyl music buyer in his teens, now is the best time ever to find really good and possibly very obscure music CDs from the online retailers. But I do miss trawling around second-hand music shops and musty second-hand book shops, both of which have been killed off by the likes of eBay.
I don't see many musicians campaigning for better wages for security consultants like me so why should I give a shit about what they're being paid?
Sorry, I'm just a consumer and a big music fan - all I care about is buying good music at good prices. If you're a musician struggling to make a living from your music then get a lawyer or get a real job.
There are two important facts that fans of "pick n mix" digital downloads fail to realise:
1. If bands are forced to start releasing music track-by-track because fans have too short attention spans to be able to sit down and listen to an entire album, then what happens to live concerts? How can a band tour regularly with new live sets unless they have enough new material to do so.
2. So the digital downloaders believe record companies are evil and music selling should be put entirely in the hands of the bands, eh? So what happens to the millions spent in marketing albums by the record companies that lead people to maybe buy those albums in the first place? When there are 20,000,000 bands selling their music through their own web sites, what helps someone separate the good stuff from the bad.
No, I do believe the record companies are quite evil but the fact is that as a CD buyer, it's actually none of my business and something I don't actually give a shit about. All I care about is that good products are being released at fair prices (like you I'm a mainly prog/hard rock/metal fan) and the fact is that there is more good music out there than I could ever possibly get to listening to.
Sorry, but anyone out there who believes that £10 for a CD you may listen to over the space of 30 years is *not* good value for money probably needs their head examined.
Actually, I'll even stick my neck out and go a stage further - I think the record companies are doing a *damn good* job of releasing great music at the moment. There is a *huge* amount of classic hard & prog rock from the 70s and onwards, some of it really obscure stuff, that is being rereleased and remastered at the moment. I am happy as a "pig in shit" with the amount of great music to go and check out all the time.
1. $14 for a CD? Possibly, unless you take more care to hunt down music at more reasonable prices. Okay, so I'm in the UK but $14 equates to about £10 and although I consider £10 to be extremely good value for a CD containing music I will enjoy over the next 30-50 years - besides which, I don't actually remember the last time I paid £10 for a CD anyway.
2. One track costs around 99p in UK money. For ten tracks, that's £9.99. Many CDs (especially the Expanded/Remasters of the classic rock stuff I tend to buy) may have anything up to 17 or 18 tracks. That makes downloads more expensive.
3. No DRM on a CD (as long as you avoid DRMed CDs which are pretty rare these days anyway). So I can rip the CDs at whatever rate I like as many times as I like, and do the sociable thing of letting family and friends borrow them also.
4. No download restrictions. I have a pretty much unlimited usage ADSL connection but lots of people over here have capped monthly usage. Music downloading contribute to that meaning there's less bandwidth for everything else.
5. Call me old fashioned but with a CD I have something tangible to file away on a shelf and admire - not to mention sleeve notes to read while on the loo.
6. I have a reasonable hi-fi - so why would I waste it's capabilities by playing compressed, lossy music on it?
7. I'm a discerning CD buyer anyway but *if* I get bored with a CD, then I can resell it legally. Again, because I listen to a lot of classic rock albums, when they get remastered & expanded I can buy the new version and resell the old one on eBay. This means that I can actually get the new version for just a couple of pounds.
8. I don't need to spend additional money buying hard drive space to store and backup my music collection onto. You should take this into account when doing your cost differences between CDs and downloads.
9. Downloads will kill music. What happens to the good bands who bother to tour currently based on a new album release if all they are doing in future is releasing music track-by-track? How often can they tour if they don't have much new material to play live?
10. Downloads are for people with short attention spans, not music fans. Sorry, but if you need "pick 'n' mix" music because you think every album only has 1 or 2 good tracks on it, then you're not listening to good music.
I find it amusing that you yourself are so naive that you don't see what is staring you in the face - namely that it is *because* some people are prepared to pay for their music that the music is released in the first place, thus allowing others to obtain it freely.
Therefore, we legal buyers of music not only subsidise your theft but justify the creation of a product that you can steal in the first place.
I don't use P2P much, except for the occasional Linux distro if there's no other option.
But the fact is that you ISPs oversell your services to the users. Sorry, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you people sell me an unlimited 8MB ADSL connection then I expect to be able to have that full bandwidth to use for whatever I choose to do with it whenever I want to.
If you can't provide what you're advertising then that's down to your lies, not my expectation of getting what I paid for.
Re:Eau de Janeway drives me crazy
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Star Trek Fragrances
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Not that I think it's disgusting in the first place but there's nothing to say he's not a "senior Slashdotter" of a similar age to Kate Mulgrew... she's only 53 years old after all...
I'm 47 for heaven's sake! Not all Slashdotters are spotty teenagers or whiny CompSci graduates...
See, that's the problem right there. Hetro isn't the 'default' sexuality, it's *a* sexuality. Classifying it as 'default,' or 'normal', is classifying everything else as 'abnormal.' It's like saying 'male' or 'female' is the 'default.' Nope.
This is where I have a real problem with gay people putting the words into the mouths of everyone.
Heterosexuality is "normal" because that's what most people in this world are, in the same way that in the western world it's "normal" to work and pay taxes. But that doesn't mean anyone outside the normal is "abnormal".
Besides which, I don't actually give a toss about homosexuality, to be frank. I don't understand it and don't care to, I know it goes on and I defend the rights of any consenting adults to go do what they damn well want to providing their not harming anyone else - but otherwise, on the basis that I don't care about homosexuality enough to want to injure, kill or discriminate against gay people, then please stop preaching to me about it.
Why do so many gay people seem to make it their mission in life to force their sexuality down everyone's throats as though they are some great crusade to change everyone else's morality?
Firstly, in just about every social situation I find myself in, the fact that I am heterosexual is completely irrelevant so I don't bother telling anyone that's the case. I'm sure there are many gay people who also have the same attitude - but why, in my experience, do so many gays (particularly men) have to make this outward show of their homosexuality? Like one gay colleague of mine who used to insist on trying to tell me about his latest sexual partner in graphic detail where I had not once ever discussed my sex life with him (or with anyone else) at work?
Secondly, I support 100% the idea that whatever goes on between 2 (or more) consenting adults is entirely their own business and if gay people want to fight for equal rights to heterosexuals then good luck to them. But please don't expect me to be particularly interested, okay? I don't want to see anyone being beaten up or killed for being gay, Christian, Muslim, black, etc. etc. but at the same time I don't consider homosexuality as normal behaviour from my own moralistic (and religious agnostic) viewpoint.
A lot of gay people really need to get it into their heads that most of us really don't care about their homosexuality - so just get on with it and stop forcing it down our throats all of the time.
1. Part of the marketing around Apple products assumes exclusivity, that's why so much effort is made into making their devices look a certain way and why their stuff is more expensive than anything equivalent.
2. As I've said several times before on Slashdot, I'm 47 years old and have been a techie in the telecoms and computer industry over here in the UK since I was 20. I've used (and still do) Linux, UNIX (Solaris & SCO) and Windows for years yet never once found any reason to buy any Apple product.
3. I'm pretty interested in computers and notice what people are using around me, whether I'm at an airport, in the office or at a customer site. I see myriads of people using Windows, quite a large number of Linux (mainly Red Hat) servers and a few (SuSE and Ubuntu) desktops or occasional laptop. I've seen a total of five Apple machines - a notebook owned by an American instructor on a router course I did, a couple of students posing in Starbucks with a Macbook, and the one owned by a friend of mine that was given to him by his boss (who didn't know what to do with it) that now sits in a dusty box in the corner because he doesn't know what to do with it either.
4. I work in converged telecoms and VoIP solutions and the reality is that Linux has basically trashed the commercial UNIX market when it comes to being the core OS of workhorse servers that drive tens of thousands of extensions, trunks, voicemail boxes, etc. Additionally, Windows gets used for the administration servers so that there's better integration into corporate intranets. No mention of Apple whatsoever, not even any administration clients.
I accept that maybe in the US desktop market, Apple is second to Windows and Linux is third. But the rest of the world is much bigger than the US and certainly here in the UK (and the bits of Europe I've been to), you rarely see them. If nothing else, the main reason is because the already inflated prices of Apple products are made higher here because of complete ignorance of the Dollar/Pound or Dollar/Euro exchange rate.
Someone who doesn't know that you start sentences with capital letters shouldn't be telling others to go and learn to read - not to mention the missing comma between "read" and "fanbois".
I happen to know both Linux and Windows (up to XP) very well and have both OSes running on PCs at home and at work.
Firstly, XP takes just as much administration as does Linux by the time you've run virus checkers, anti-spyware stuff and defraggers so the "just works" comment is BS.
Secondly, take your blinkers off and go read a book or two. There's nothing to stop you slotting in whatever kernel you want on pretty much whatever distro you want as long as you make sure you know what you're doing and how to do it, like I do. That means that because I know it well enough, it pretty much "just works" for me.
Thirdly, don't turn this into a Windows v Linux rant. I use both, I like both for their own reasons (okay, Windows XP) and if either of them did all I needed a PC to do then that's the only OS I would use. I'm not playing the Linux zealot so please don't play the Windows one.
I always find it amusing when people post anti-Linux comments that only serve to demonstrate how little they actually know about it.
Firstly, Linux hardware support is dependent upon the kernel version - the later kernel you use, the more chances that a newer piece of hardware is supported. The only exception are closed-sourced drivers (e.g. Nvidia/ATI graphics drivers) which need to be partly compiled against kernel headers on some occasions. It has nothing to do with the distro you use but everything to do with how well a manufacturer publishes specifications on their hardware so that they, or a third party developer, can write Linux drivers.
Secondly, the issue of hardware drivers rears its ugly head every time there is a new Windows release with many hardware vendors not updating their Windows drivers or even refusing to write them for the new Windows release - as was the case with many printer drivers between XP and Vista.
Thirdly, you are an idiot if you don't research hardware properly - whether you use Windows or Linux. Before you buy a piece of hardware, it is very simple to do a few Google searches just to find out how well that hardware is supported in your favourite OS(es).
Fourthly, this word "commonality". Why would a Linux user *want* commonality? All they want is something that works to their liking - which means that some go for Ubuntu, others for Fedora and those who want "bleeding edge" and full customisation go for Gentoo. Again, don't be an idiot or trend-follower - use Linux because you have a use for it or are prepared to put some effort into learning how it works, not because you think it's "cool" or fashionable to do so.
are you familiar with the phenomenon of the guy who owns an iMac/iPhone/[Insert Apple Product Here], and must remind every stranger he meets of this fact, constantly?
Straight answer: Because the music industry is harming musicians more than it's helping them--especially the smaller and less commercial musicians. Because if it weren't for this industry, you would be able to find MORE artists that you like, and existing artists would be able to make a (better?) living from their art--which leads to more and better music.
Consider this...
Let's say the "Day Of The Revolution" comes & the record companies disappear up their own backsides. That leaves all these talented musicians free to start their own web sites to advertise & sell their own music. And there are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of them, doing it ALL AT ONCE. So, pray tell, what steers me, Mr. Music Buyer, to any one of their sites to go find out who they are and maybe buy some of their music?
Yes, I consider all corporations as nothing more than "rich fat cats at the top" who would even sell their own grandmothers to rip money from my pockets - but in actuality, I really don't care because the music I buy is good value to me & that's all a nice Capitalist with a bit of disposable income like me wants - good value for money.
And, the fact is, when I read my Classic Rock magazine, I do occasionally pay attention to an advertisement inside it & if a band being advertised at me sounds interesting then I do try to check them out - and maybe even buy a CD of theirs. So the millions the record companies do spend on marketing does work & costs a lot more than maybe an impecunious bunch of musicians can afford.
Yes, there's far too much brilliant music out there than I'll ever listen to. On the other hand, I might want more of one particular artist (shameless plug). I unfortunately know too many musicians who can't afford to release any more albums, because they're essentially making minimum wage from gigs, and owe the record companies thousands or tens of thousands for "promotional costs" of their previous album.
You might well be a musician with a grudge and without a record contract? So what? I wanted to be an airline pilot when I was a kid but decided to go do a more boring job just so I could earn a living. Sometimes life sucks, get a real job.
Incidentally, I'm a little bit passionate about this topic because I have professional musicians in my family, and see many sides of the coin. Fundamentally, it should be simple: Artists and fans (or potential fans) should be able to connect, and the artists should be paid a decent wage. If someone else helps that connection, they deserve to be paid for their help as well. Everything else is noise and distraction.
I'm also passionate about music - to the point where I don't let things like politics get in the way of it. And I do think most of the music churned out today is absolute crap. But it doesn't affect me because I don't buy it.
Look, when record companies start murdering children then maybe I'll get a conscience. But until then, please don't expect me to lose any sleep over poor musicians just like there won't be too many of them out doing a "Benefit Gig" on my behalf if & when the global spending drop in telecoms & IT means I lose my job.
Wrong. Because you just horde it & don't appreciate it. Music becomes a disposable commodity.
2. What about if I download Led Zeppelin albums? That I own in other formats already? Is that OK with you?
Decide for yourself. Just remember people like me bought them each time - thus paying for what the freeloaders horde.
4. Isn't that what iTunes is for?
iTunes fulfills exactly what the record companies want which is to make music a disposable commodity so that you keep buying it & erasing it when you're bored with it.
5. True... what's your point?
That a true music fan is someone who uses discretion before choosing their music, not a person with a 20,000+ MP3 collection.
6. I play guitar and love learning songs based on tabs & youtube vids. Does that make me a bad person? The RIAA thinks so.
I'm not a musician and have never understood copying another musician or being in a tribute band rather than making your own original stuff... but then I'm sure all the great musicians were influenced by someone. Are you bad? I don't think so...
But please ***DON'T*** equate buying music as being an RIAA fan because I am most certainly not. I just don't believe freeloaders are any better because by doing what they do creates a justification for DRM which also affects the honest buyers as well. They are both as bad as each other.
7. People still buy CDs?
Yep, they certainly do. And they're the things that once bought get ripped & thrown onto Torrent networks for freeloaders to snaffle.
Just remember, freeloaders, someone had to buy the original CD in the first place before you got it for free.
It's worth remembering that even with all the unsanctioned file-sharing happening, the music industry is still turning a profit (otherwise they would just stop selling CDs altogether).
They only make a profit because honest people like me buy the CDs. And that means the CDs are made in the first place that allows them to ripped & spread over the Internet for all the freeloaders.
So perhaps those idiots who feel justified in downloading their music for free would care to stop for a second & appreciate that they can only do that because I and others like me actually buy the CDs in the first place.
What about if we ALL downloaded our music for free?
Sorry, ain't got the time to do that - I'm a real music fan. I buy what sounds good, I couldn't give a toss whether it's made by Sony or "Grandpa Joe's Street Corner Record Label".
It's even worse for me - my connection also gets probed & monitored despite being an honest music fan that the music industry just assumes is downloading it for free.
RIAA and free downloaders - no difference in my book & they're made for each other.
probably because they have a big interest but not unlimited money.
My point exactly - why do you ***NEED*** unlimited money for more music unless you're a poor sap who only buys the mass-produced fashionable crap that's designed to go out of fashion as quickly as it came in so you have to keep buying the new stuff to stay "cool".
I've got a few hundred albums that I've collected over about 25 years of CD buying & I don't buy many new ones because the ones I have bought are of high enough quality to enjoy over and over again.
The whole concept of music downloading turns music into a disposable commodity - Bored with it? Then just erase it, whether or not you paid for it.
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Don't get me wrong, for years I've been more "Linux user" than "Windows user" and I love (and regularly play) Open Source games like Nexuiz, World Of Padman, Battle For Wesnoth and a few others.
I also think that by far the majority of commercial games are utter derivative dreck but even if that's 99% of games, then there's more than enough to satisfy my gaming needs in that remaining 1% - I wholly applaud the commercial games industry for recent games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Galactic Civilizations 2, Fallout 3 and Half-Life (1,2, Episodes, Portal, etc.) for example.
But I think the optimal future for gaming is to have a hybrid between Open Source and commercial games. In an ideal world, graphics cards manufacturers will openly publish their card specifications to allow anyone to create good gaming engines for whatever genre of game is needed. Have commercial games people contributing to the development of those engines but have them mainly focused on level design and game content - so, in other words, the engine is pretty much free, you just pay for the levels/addons.
I've been gaming some 25+ years now and it's never ceased to amaze me how games companies will create a great engine for a game but then maybe only publish a handful of games on it - why not create a situation where the code for those engines is constantly enhanced and improved?
In the real world, just look at what the modding community has done on top of the Open Sourced Quake and Doom engines - some of the new games that have been created on those engines are worth a few dollars or pounds of anyone's money even though you can get them for free.
The games industry needs to stop thinking about £40 for a single standalone game and maybe start thinking about £10 for a new scenario for an existing engine.
The only real problem with buying CDs these days is having to be a little patient due to buying them online at the best prices possible and waiting for the postman to deliver them.
The last time I was in a Best Buy was about eight years ago when I was over in the States and I remember being quite impressed with their selections of music at the time - but if it's anything like over here in the UK now, most of the interesting music shops have disappeared now and we really only have HMV in the High Street here now, who themselves are giving over less and less space to CDs but (for any reasonable music) are charging higher and higher prices.
With that said, as someone in his 40s who started off as a vinyl music buyer in his teens, now is the best time ever to find really good and possibly very obscure music CDs from the online retailers. But I do miss trawling around second-hand music shops and musty second-hand book shops, both of which have been killed off by the likes of eBay.
Say 10USD for all of Frank Zappa's music.
I think you're living in cloud-cuckoo-land.
I don't see many musicians campaigning for better wages for security consultants like me so why should I give a shit about what they're being paid?
Sorry, I'm just a consumer and a big music fan - all I care about is buying good music at good prices. If you're a musician struggling to make a living from your music then get a lawyer or get a real job.
There are two important facts that fans of "pick n mix" digital downloads fail to realise:
1. If bands are forced to start releasing music track-by-track because fans have too short attention spans to be able to sit down and listen to an entire album, then what happens to live concerts? How can a band tour regularly with new live sets unless they have enough new material to do so.
2. So the digital downloaders believe record companies are evil and music selling should be put entirely in the hands of the bands, eh? So what happens to the millions spent in marketing albums by the record companies that lead people to maybe buy those albums in the first place? When there are 20,000,000 bands selling their music through their own web sites, what helps someone separate the good stuff from the bad.
No, I do believe the record companies are quite evil but the fact is that as a CD buyer, it's actually none of my business and something I don't actually give a shit about. All I care about is that good products are being released at fair prices (like you I'm a mainly prog/hard rock/metal fan) and the fact is that there is more good music out there than I could ever possibly get to listening to.
Sorry, but anyone out there who believes that £10 for a CD you may listen to over the space of 30 years is *not* good value for money probably needs their head examined.
Actually, I'll even stick my neck out and go a stage further - I think the record companies are doing a *damn good* job of releasing great music at the moment. There is a *huge* amount of classic hard & prog rock from the 70s and onwards, some of it really obscure stuff, that is being rereleased and remastered at the moment. I am happy as a "pig in shit" with the amount of great music to go and check out all the time.
Ahem!
1. $14 for a CD? Possibly, unless you take more care to hunt down music at more reasonable prices. Okay, so I'm in the UK but $14 equates to about £10 and although I consider £10 to be extremely good value for a CD containing music I will enjoy over the next 30-50 years - besides which, I don't actually remember the last time I paid £10 for a CD anyway.
2. One track costs around 99p in UK money. For ten tracks, that's £9.99. Many CDs (especially the Expanded/Remasters of the classic rock stuff I tend to buy) may have anything up to 17 or 18 tracks. That makes downloads more expensive.
3. No DRM on a CD (as long as you avoid DRMed CDs which are pretty rare these days anyway). So I can rip the CDs at whatever rate I like as many times as I like, and do the sociable thing of letting family and friends borrow them also.
4. No download restrictions. I have a pretty much unlimited usage ADSL connection but lots of people over here have capped monthly usage. Music downloading contribute to that meaning there's less bandwidth for everything else.
5. Call me old fashioned but with a CD I have something tangible to file away on a shelf and admire - not to mention sleeve notes to read while on the loo.
6. I have a reasonable hi-fi - so why would I waste it's capabilities by playing compressed, lossy music on it?
7. I'm a discerning CD buyer anyway but *if* I get bored with a CD, then I can resell it legally. Again, because I listen to a lot of classic rock albums, when they get remastered & expanded I can buy the new version and resell the old one on eBay. This means that I can actually get the new version for just a couple of pounds.
8. I don't need to spend additional money buying hard drive space to store and backup my music collection onto. You should take this into account when doing your cost differences between CDs and downloads.
9. Downloads will kill music. What happens to the good bands who bother to tour currently based on a new album release if all they are doing in future is releasing music track-by-track? How often can they tour if they don't have much new material to play live?
10. Downloads are for people with short attention spans, not music fans. Sorry, but if you need "pick 'n' mix" music because you think every album only has 1 or 2 good tracks on it, then you're not listening to good music.
I find it amusing that you yourself are so naive that you don't see what is staring you in the face - namely that it is *because* some people are prepared to pay for their music that the music is released in the first place, thus allowing others to obtain it freely.
Therefore, we legal buyers of music not only subsidise your theft but justify the creation of a product that you can steal in the first place.
I don't use P2P much, except for the occasional Linux distro if there's no other option.
But the fact is that you ISPs oversell your services to the users. Sorry, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you people sell me an unlimited 8MB ADSL connection then I expect to be able to have that full bandwidth to use for whatever I choose to do with it whenever I want to.
If you can't provide what you're advertising then that's down to your lies, not my expectation of getting what I paid for.
Not that I think it's disgusting in the first place but there's nothing to say he's not a "senior Slashdotter" of a similar age to Kate Mulgrew... she's only 53 years old after all...
I'm 47 for heaven's sake! Not all Slashdotters are spotty teenagers or whiny CompSci graduates...
See, that's the problem right there. Hetro isn't the 'default' sexuality, it's *a* sexuality. Classifying it as 'default,' or 'normal', is classifying everything else as 'abnormal.' It's like saying 'male' or 'female' is the 'default.' Nope.
This is where I have a real problem with gay people putting the words into the mouths of everyone.
Heterosexuality is "normal" because that's what most people in this world are, in the same way that in the western world it's "normal" to work and pay taxes. But that doesn't mean anyone outside the normal is "abnormal".
Besides which, I don't actually give a toss about homosexuality, to be frank. I don't understand it and don't care to, I know it goes on and I defend the rights of any consenting adults to go do what they damn well want to providing their not harming anyone else - but otherwise, on the basis that I don't care about homosexuality enough to want to injure, kill or discriminate against gay people, then please stop preaching to me about it.
Why do so many gay people seem to make it their mission in life to force their sexuality down everyone's throats as though they are some great crusade to change everyone else's morality?
Firstly, in just about every social situation I find myself in, the fact that I am heterosexual is completely irrelevant so I don't bother telling anyone that's the case. I'm sure there are many gay people who also have the same attitude - but why, in my experience, do so many gays (particularly men) have to make this outward show of their homosexuality? Like one gay colleague of mine who used to insist on trying to tell me about his latest sexual partner in graphic detail where I had not once ever discussed my sex life with him (or with anyone else) at work?
Secondly, I support 100% the idea that whatever goes on between 2 (or more) consenting adults is entirely their own business and if gay people want to fight for equal rights to heterosexuals then good luck to them. But please don't expect me to be particularly interested, okay? I don't want to see anyone being beaten up or killed for being gay, Christian, Muslim, black, etc. etc. but at the same time I don't consider homosexuality as normal behaviour from my own moralistic (and religious agnostic) viewpoint.
A lot of gay people really need to get it into their heads that most of us really don't care about their homosexuality - so just get on with it and stop forcing it down our throats all of the time.
Please join the real world.
1. Part of the marketing around Apple products assumes exclusivity, that's why so much effort is made into making their devices look a certain way and why their stuff is more expensive than anything equivalent.
2. As I've said several times before on Slashdot, I'm 47 years old and have been a techie in the telecoms and computer industry over here in the UK since I was 20. I've used (and still do) Linux, UNIX (Solaris & SCO) and Windows for years yet never once found any reason to buy any Apple product.
3. I'm pretty interested in computers and notice what people are using around me, whether I'm at an airport, in the office or at a customer site. I see myriads of people using Windows, quite a large number of Linux (mainly Red Hat) servers and a few (SuSE and Ubuntu) desktops or occasional laptop. I've seen a total of five Apple machines - a notebook owned by an American instructor on a router course I did, a couple of students posing in Starbucks with a Macbook, and the one owned by a friend of mine that was given to him by his boss (who didn't know what to do with it) that now sits in a dusty box in the corner because he doesn't know what to do with it either.
4. I work in converged telecoms and VoIP solutions and the reality is that Linux has basically trashed the commercial UNIX market when it comes to being the core OS of workhorse servers that drive tens of thousands of extensions, trunks, voicemail boxes, etc. Additionally, Windows gets used for the administration servers so that there's better integration into corporate intranets. No mention of Apple whatsoever, not even any administration clients.
I accept that maybe in the US desktop market, Apple is second to Windows and Linux is third. But the rest of the world is much bigger than the US and certainly here in the UK (and the bits of Europe I've been to), you rarely see them. If nothing else, the main reason is because the already inflated prices of Apple products are made higher here because of complete ignorance of the Dollar/Pound or Dollar/Euro exchange rate.
Someone who doesn't know that you start sentences with capital letters shouldn't be telling others to go and learn to read - not to mention the missing comma between "read" and "fanbois".
I happen to know both Linux and Windows (up to XP) very well and have both OSes running on PCs at home and at work.
Firstly, XP takes just as much administration as does Linux by the time you've run virus checkers, anti-spyware stuff and defraggers so the "just works" comment is BS.
Secondly, take your blinkers off and go read a book or two. There's nothing to stop you slotting in whatever kernel you want on pretty much whatever distro you want as long as you make sure you know what you're doing and how to do it, like I do. That means that because I know it well enough, it pretty much "just works" for me.
Thirdly, don't turn this into a Windows v Linux rant. I use both, I like both for their own reasons (okay, Windows XP) and if either of them did all I needed a PC to do then that's the only OS I would use. I'm not playing the Linux zealot so please don't play the Windows one.
I always find it amusing when people post anti-Linux comments that only serve to demonstrate how little they actually know about it.
Firstly, Linux hardware support is dependent upon the kernel version - the later kernel you use, the more chances that a newer piece of hardware is supported. The only exception are closed-sourced drivers (e.g. Nvidia/ATI graphics drivers) which need to be partly compiled against kernel headers on some occasions. It has nothing to do with the distro you use but everything to do with how well a manufacturer publishes specifications on their hardware so that they, or a third party developer, can write Linux drivers.
Secondly, the issue of hardware drivers rears its ugly head every time there is a new Windows release with many hardware vendors not updating their Windows drivers or even refusing to write them for the new Windows release - as was the case with many printer drivers between XP and Vista.
Thirdly, you are an idiot if you don't research hardware properly - whether you use Windows or Linux. Before you buy a piece of hardware, it is very simple to do a few Google searches just to find out how well that hardware is supported in your favourite OS(es).
Fourthly, this word "commonality". Why would a Linux user *want* commonality? All they want is something that works to their liking - which means that some go for Ubuntu, others for Fedora and those who want "bleeding edge" and full customisation go for Gentoo. Again, don't be an idiot or trend-follower - use Linux because you have a use for it or are prepared to put some effort into learning how it works, not because you think it's "cool" or fashionable to do so.
Here, first let me correct that for you:
are you familiar with the phenomenon of the guy who owns an iMac/iPhone/[Insert Apple Product Here], and must remind every stranger he meets of this fact, constantly?
To which question, the answer is yes.
Straight answer: Because the music industry is harming musicians more than it's helping them--especially the smaller and less commercial musicians. Because if it weren't for this industry, you would be able to find MORE artists that you like, and existing artists would be able to make a (better?) living from their art--which leads to more and better music.
Consider this...
Let's say the "Day Of The Revolution" comes & the record companies disappear up their own backsides. That leaves all these talented musicians free to start their own web sites to advertise & sell their own music. And there are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of them, doing it ALL AT ONCE. So, pray tell, what steers me, Mr. Music Buyer, to any one of their sites to go find out who they are and maybe buy some of their music?
Yes, I consider all corporations as nothing more than "rich fat cats at the top" who would even sell their own grandmothers to rip money from my pockets - but in actuality, I really don't care because the music I buy is good value to me & that's all a nice Capitalist with a bit of disposable income like me wants - good value for money.
And, the fact is, when I read my Classic Rock magazine, I do occasionally pay attention to an advertisement inside it & if a band being advertised at me sounds interesting then I do try to check them out - and maybe even buy a CD of theirs. So the millions the record companies do spend on marketing does work & costs a lot more than maybe an impecunious bunch of musicians can afford.
Yes, there's far too much brilliant music out there than I'll ever listen to. On the other hand, I might want more of one particular artist (shameless plug). I unfortunately know too many musicians who can't afford to release any more albums, because they're essentially making minimum wage from gigs, and owe the record companies thousands or tens of thousands for "promotional costs" of their previous album.
You might well be a musician with a grudge and without a record contract? So what? I wanted to be an airline pilot when I was a kid but decided to go do a more boring job just so I could earn a living. Sometimes life sucks, get a real job.
Incidentally, I'm a little bit passionate about this topic because I have professional musicians in my family, and see many sides of the coin. Fundamentally, it should be simple: Artists and fans (or potential fans) should be able to connect, and the artists should be paid a decent wage. If someone else helps that connection, they deserve to be paid for their help as well. Everything else is noise and distraction.
I'm also passionate about music - to the point where I don't let things like politics get in the way of it. And I do think most of the music churned out today is absolute crap. But it doesn't affect me because I don't buy it.
Look, when record companies start murdering children then maybe I'll get a conscience. But until then, please don't expect me to lose any sleep over poor musicians just like there won't be too many of them out doing a "Benefit Gig" on my behalf if & when the global spending drop in telecoms & IT means I lose my job.
Erm... how about just buying the CD? Cheaper, quicker & you have some nice sleeve notes to read while on the toilet.
How about you download it & make a donation to a charity based on it's value to you?
Then write to the record company who made it & tell them you did that.
In that way, you will have parted with some money for the sake of having that piece of music. This is turn will make you appreciate it more.
1. Best price = free
Wrong. Because you just horde it & don't appreciate it. Music becomes a disposable commodity.
2. What about if I download Led Zeppelin albums? That I own in other formats already? Is that OK with you?
Decide for yourself. Just remember people like me bought them each time - thus paying for what the freeloaders horde.
4. Isn't that what iTunes is for?
iTunes fulfills exactly what the record companies want which is to make music a disposable commodity so that you keep buying it & erasing it when you're bored with it.
5. True... what's your point?
That a true music fan is someone who uses discretion before choosing their music, not a person with a 20,000+ MP3 collection.
6. I play guitar and love learning songs based on tabs & youtube vids. Does that make me a bad person? The RIAA thinks so.
I'm not a musician and have never understood copying another musician or being in a tribute band rather than making your own original stuff... but then I'm sure all the great musicians were influenced by someone. Are you bad? I don't think so...
But please ***DON'T*** equate buying music as being an RIAA fan because I am most certainly not. I just don't believe freeloaders are any better because by doing what they do creates a justification for DRM which also affects the honest buyers as well. They are both as bad as each other.
7. People still buy CDs?
Yep, they certainly do. And they're the things that once bought get ripped & thrown onto Torrent networks for freeloaders to snaffle.
Just remember, freeloaders, someone had to buy the original CD in the first place before you got it for free.
It's worth remembering that even with all the unsanctioned file-sharing happening, the music industry is still turning a profit (otherwise they would just stop selling CDs altogether).
They only make a profit because honest people like me buy the CDs. And that means the CDs are made in the first place that allows them to ripped & spread over the Internet for all the freeloaders.
So perhaps those idiots who feel justified in downloading their music for free would care to stop for a second & appreciate that they can only do that because I and others like me actually buy the CDs in the first place.
What about if we ALL downloaded our music for free?
Sorry, ain't got the time to do that - I'm a real music fan. I buy what sounds good, I couldn't give a toss whether it's made by Sony or "Grandpa Joe's Street Corner Record Label".
If it sounds good & worth the money, I'm happy.
It's even worse for me - my connection also gets probed & monitored despite being an honest music fan that the music industry just assumes is downloading it for free.
RIAA and free downloaders - no difference in my book & they're made for each other.
probably because they have a big interest but not unlimited money.
My point exactly - why do you ***NEED*** unlimited money for more music unless you're a poor sap who only buys the mass-produced fashionable crap that's designed to go out of fashion as quickly as it came in so you have to keep buying the new stuff to stay "cool".
I've got a few hundred albums that I've collected over about 25 years of CD buying & I don't buy many new ones because the ones I have bought are of high enough quality to enjoy over and over again.
The whole concept of music downloading turns music into a disposable commodity - Bored with it? Then just erase it, whether or not you paid for it.
I doubt many people who download music actually do so because their CD collections were destroyed.